Archive for the ‘Heguru’ Category

Was doing housekeeping and foundthis old booklet from Heguru. There is this very useful article: 8 Points to Bring Out the Best in Your Children

1. Raise a child by developing his/her strength.

“Instead of focusing on the weak subjects or weak areas of a child, we work on the strengths of the child. From here, we are able to channel this new found confidence as energy to handle the weak subject and weak area.”

“develop the child’s positive thinking and image”, “enhance the child’s ability of cultivating positive phrases such as, “I believe I can do it”.

5. Nurture your children by observing the “Kindness” within them, rather than the disguised behaviorism.

6. Bringing up a child by understanding the various growth process.

I personally like this one a lot. “The most troublesome time of growth for children is during the ‘rebellious period’. Generally, it happens at ages of 3, 8 and 14. This is a period which both children and parents would very much like to avoid. But also, it is during this difficult period that the children grow significantly.”

“One of the appropriate ways of coping with the rebellious period is to encourage “open communication”and “handle each situation with humor”.

“Besides the ‘rebellious period’, children will also experience the ‘obedience period‘.” “It is important to build character during this period. Instead, most parents pamper their children during this period. As the children are cute and they love to smile, parents are rarely strict with them. This results in bringing up children who do not listen to instructions.”

7. The impressions and expectations parents and teachers have on their children will influence their results and performance.

“Parents are an essential part of their children’s life. The image children have of their parents will definitely become the ‘self-image’ of these children.”

8. Respect and recognize the existence of the children.

“We are adults, have similar needs as them, such as a strong feeling of ‘wanting to be loved’, and ‘wanting to be recognized’.”

Bump into this website Everyday Mandala for Children™ and YES! this is what is done in Heguru. So thrilled as I am not able to send the girls for Heguru, will check out their product and see it will help in doing home practise with them.

“Remember that regular practice and the need to stay positive is of utmost importance. Hence, do not be too eager to ensure your child gets it right everytime. When children feel pressure coming from their parents, they start losing interest along with their willingness to cooperate.” ~ I believe this apply to all learning be it right brain activities or academic studies.

Went for the Tweedle Wink Parents Talk Saturday evening. Basically it explains the right brain and left brain education, and explain the important of love and relationship-first approach they have taken.

After digesting what I heard and reconnected to what I learnt and experience thus far (I am still learning), just would like to share some of my thought here.

This is how I want to group the right brain educations here ,

Shichida and Heguru – more on technically right brain training and practises; very good if the kids can cope and don’t feel stressed. Just my believe: some kids don’t feel the stress and enjoy the challenge of all these high speed activities. And sometimes, I think the parents are more stressed and worried.

Tweedle Wink – allow me to use the terms used in the presentation: they are more on “planting seeds” with the aim to nurture the passion to learn, which is for the long run. They are generally more gentle in merging the left brain and right brain learning.

Another point which I strongly agree with Pamela (I believe this is mentioned in Prof Mahkoto Shichida as well) that the most important part of right brain education lies on parents.

The right brain learns when the child feels loved, trusted, and feels secured. They know the faith their parents have on them which back them up to explore, have passion and to learn new things.

The one hour weekly program won’t do any help if at home the parents are throwing all kind of negative messages, gesture and input to the child. It won’t help if the child don’t think that: it’s ok to be wrong, it’s ok to be not getting the right answer every time, it’s ok to take time to think and understand, and make mistake many many times. It won’t help if all the child knows is: I am not good, I am stupid, I am useless, I am bad, I bring shame to my family.

Lastly, let me share this story I love the most from Shichida (I can’t remember I share this before, if yes, just treat it as a long winded aunty, trying to tell the same old story again and again 😛 ):

A boy went to meet Prof Mahkoto Shichida and he was showing Prof Mahkoto Shichida his school result which he scored below 10 marks out of 100. Well, after seeing his result, Prof Mahkoto Shichida said: that was good. He explained to the boy that that means he can do better and get higher mark next time VS if he already got 100.

(Sorry, not a good story teller). Morale of the story: always look at the good side, and don’t use a magnifying glass to see the shortcoming of a child, and always remember the child is changing, growing and learning every single minutes, this is just a phase that he/she is going through （一个过程）.

Was chit chatting with my hubby while waiting for our girls who were still in their ballet class. We talked about all these right brain enrichment classes that we have attended and comparing the flash cards session from these classes.

Yes. The things taught in Tweedle Wink class are different every week, and the flash cards are slower, and the pace for the activities in the classroom are slower if you compare with Shichida where most of the activities are to be completed in few minutes time. Another difference is there are a lot more supplementary activities to help the children learnt the topics that are taught in class. One example, the Cultures flash cards where every week a different country is being introduced: after watching the flash cards, the country national anthem is played; each children are given a small card with the country map on it to have a closer look and feel; and the teacher will ask the children to find the location of the country from the big world map on the wall; and the teacher will show the way starting from Malaysia to reach that location/country; and the teacher will show them where it is on the 3D globe as well. And from my girls feedback, they do talk a little more in class. All this additional activities help the children to understand and remember what is being taught.

For Heguru (and Shichida), the flash cards are normally repeated for certain amount of weeks before a new topic is introduced. And what we notice, in Heguru, for example, the Road Sign or Elements flash cards, every week a new card is introduced together with the previous week set, and one old card is also taken out. So, when think about it, it’s a bit like Glen Doman way too. And it’s flashed in a fairly fast manner. Another thing that we think Heguru did quite well is that they use quite a number of background music/songs when presenting the flash cards/topic. My favourite examples are the sad Vincent Van Gogh song, and the funny digestive system song and teaching material. We believe it helps to leave a very deep impression (image) in children mind. And my personal opinion, it’s much more closer to the Right Brain training/education by Prof Mahkoto Shichida.

Now the question, will the children learn all things taught in these once a week class (well, like other kiasu and calculative parents, trying to see the value returned from the $$$ spent).

This is just what I think: Tweedle Wink, the topics taught are different weekly. And it’s almost impossible to expect a child(even an adult) to pick up all things (every single one) taught in the class with only one time exposure to it. But then, with the additional activities and hands on, they learn if not all. They do. Another good point Tweedle Wink has is the DVD. So, you can revise what is taught in the class at home by playing the DVD. Well, through this repetitive input, the child learns more and the higher chances the knowledge stays in the child mind. And I personally find this is very close to our normal or natural way of learning.

For Heguru (Shichida), the flash cards are used/shown for several weeks before it’s replaced with another topics of flash cards (though new cards are added each week for the same topic). To me, it seems like it’s doing the repetitive input weekly until it is absorbed into the children mind. Yes. The children also learn this way. Just that I think we can do better, rip better result if this process is done daily (by right, it should be done daily, just like what is mentioned in Glen Doman method). But then, well, there is no DVD and what taught in class is not shared / provided to the parents to revise with the children at home.

In general, I think these classes shouldn’t be a once a week kind of class. It should be something like Bao Bei: repetitive exposure and very frequently, this will speed up the time to acquire the knowledge.

I feel sad every time when I think of how expensive all these education has become. It shouldn’t be.

I created the following math worksheets for the girls. Ying was still too young to put her on too much writing exercise. So I used the ‘dot-dot’ stickers which I bought from Becon stationery shop.

I created the following worksheets for them. They LOVE it.

Important rule: I don’t give them all at one time, just one worksheet a day. (Similar to Shichida home exercise rule: you stop before they want to).

So everyday, the worksheet helps to occupy their time for a while and I can squeeze some for myself. 🙂 And the writing part, I let them choose their favourite ‘magic pen’ to trace, with different colors they like.

If you have attended Heguru, you will find the 四方格 quite familiar, right? I like the way Heguru uses the different size of 四方格 to teach the math; like 3×3, 5×5. (they also have the other random dots like other right brain training schools) Some brilliant kids can even catch the idea of counting by these grouping themselves.

“Mummy, mummy, it’s 50km per hour.” Ling pointed to the road sign we just passed by.

“Mummy, I remember No Left Turn, People No Entry, 小猫咪….” said Ying.

The two girls continued competing to see who remember more ……………

“Mummy, I like Heguru better than Tweedle Wink. ” Ying said suddenly.

“Ya, mummy, I can remember Angkor Wat…. But I like Tweedle Wink better.” Ling commented.

ai ya ya… mummy is going to be really broke.

I think both are wonderful programmes, at least when my daughters come back from the class, they can tell me what they’ve learnt. The children are learning.

Sad isn’t it when think of how expensive the education costs us now. Everything is money. … sigh… I pray hard for more good and dedicated teachers, and more good education being shared freely if not more economically. Just hope my sharing here will help those who’ve never attended the class.

One of the Bao Bei’s teacher shared with me that during flash card session, they mainly focusing on flashing the cards and pronouncing the word accurately; no explanation of the word, where it’s used. The explanation comes later, and definitely not during the flash card session. Based on their experience, example given, if they show the card ‘书’ and teach by saying ‘书’, ‘书包的书’, the children tends to link(remember) the word to ‘书包’ instead of just the character ‘书’. When they are shown the word card, they tend to answer it’s ‘书包’ instead of the single word ‘书’.

This is the same technique taught in my reading center last time. The franchiser also shared with me, when teaching new words, just flash, repeat, and say it loud and clear only. Explanation session should come separately later when going through the textbook, reading the paragraph made of the words.

So, after all, they are the same findings from two different reading schools 🙂

p.s. In Heguru, they arrange the Chinese flash card in another way. E.g. the flash in the following sequence: